Ask Skift: How Do Natural Disasters Impact Tourism?

25.09.2023 - 09:41 / skift.com / Rashaad Jorden

Several destinations heavily dependent on tourism have been devastated recently by natural disasters, including Maui and Morocco.

How do natural disasters impact tourism? We posed the question to Ask Skift, our artificial intelligence chatbot. It provided answers based on information from our past news coverage and research, and we also conducted further reporting.

Natural disasters significantly impact tourism. Tour operators and conference events often cancel or suspend operations in the aftermath of a disaster, as was the case following an earthquake in Morocco in September 2023. Such cancellations can lead to significant decreases in tourism for the affected areas. Additionally, extreme weather patterns are causing tourism businesses to adapt to a new landscape, understanding and responding to the day-to-day impacts of these events.

According to a report by the European Travel Commission, around 7.6% of travelers now consider extreme weather events a major concern for trips, particularly during the peak season from June to November. This has led to changes in travel decisions, with some opting for cooler destinations to avoid heatwaves.

Furthermore, there’s a sense of a new normal emerging in the age of climate change, where such events are becoming more common and impacting tourism promotion. For example, Australia had to pull a tourism campaign due to the contrasting reality of wildfires in the region.

Overall, the impact of natural disasters on tourism is multifaceted, affecting travel plans, operations of travel businesses, and even tourism promotion strategies.

Maui, hit by massive wildfires on the western part of the island last month, might see a drop in visitors for the foreseeable future, according to analysts at T.D. Cowen. While they wrote that Hawaii overall would remain a dream vacation destination, they predicted Maui’s rebound would “take years,” citing the two-year recovery for air travel demand to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Irma in 2017.

John Reyes, the senior vice president of the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, said the island is losing $11 million a day because of the downturn in visitors, with many travelers opting not to visit the island out of sensitivity to local residents. So the Hawaii Tourism Authority is currently running a tourism campaign Mālama Maui, which means “to protect, nurture and care for,” that runs through October 31.

The state will reopen West Maui, which bore the brunt of the wildfires, to tourists staring on October 8. However, the heavily damaged Lahaina will remain closed to the public.

Meanwhile, Rachid Aourraz, a Morocco-based nonresident senior scholar for Washington, D.C.-based think tank Middle East Institute, told the Washington Post that